Frequent Blogging: Round Two Introduction

Someday his belly will stick out, like his dad's, and the hair covering his forehead will recede back to the crown of his head--but only near the temples, not the tuft in front. Like his dad's. My bangs will start to gray like my mom's, and the skin under my bright blue eyes will sag to the top of my cheek bones. He'll lose some muscle mass and I won't be able to run as far, but I'll still make him breakfast and he'll still prune the bushes outside.

And we'll still love each other. Like crazy. Probably even crazier.

I wonder what we'll tell our kids about these days. About the little duplex south of campus with the rose bushes in front and our charitable duplex neighbor whose dad also died last year. Our toilet that wouldn't stop running and the eerie crawl space in the four foot hallway. Our kids won't even be able to imagine it until we drive past, pointing--"There's our first house! And that's the apartment complex where Dad told me he loved me. And that wall--Dad built it! It's where I told him I was going on a mission. Yep, and we'd run down these streets every morning before school."

What if we forget? Surely details seem more memorable when they're connected with falling in love and being in love and making love and working for love. Still...memories fade, but I want these ones preserved forever. So that, you know, the little boat in the backyard isn't the only proof of when Dad wooed Mom or next thing you know we're complete empty nesters except for that little Free Bird and none of our little chicklets have any idea of what happened before them.

So here it is. If you're my mom, may your heart be warmed at the stories of the humble boy who came and swept your fourth off her feet; if I'm your mom, take these stories as examples when looking for the right one; if you're a far-future descendant--be grateful. You've got a rich history and I bothered to write it down.

And so, from stage right--enter e-Billy-ence!

UNFINISHED ENTRY: Comforting Billy

I was laying in bed thinking, just like he had done the day before. Today he was out moving snow, and I was in moving things around in my head.

Then the snow was all moved and he came back, not singing along with me like usual, not talking real loud or pinching my bum. Just pouring the cereal then saying the prayer then chewing and swallowing.

"You seem sad. You ok?" I put my arm around him, but he didn't look at me. He stared at the leftover milk in his bowl.

"Just thinking about my dad. Cus of that dream I had about your dad yesterday. In the dream, when your mom told us he really died, I started crying and crying as hard as I did when my dad died. It just made me think."

I slipped my hand in between his, looking at his profile. What else could I do? Touch and listen and wait, it always worked before and I knew it would work again.

"It just made me think about my dad on the mountain

Finish

Some finish lines are huge and dramatic. Some are small or undistinguishable. All of them are epic symbols of a job well done.

One race I ran was a simple out and back 5k which ended right where it started. The chute was two ropes strung parallel to form a little line for the finishers and the end was anti-climactic almost. Except that I was one of only a few who ventured the heat that day to run the race and finish it.

I once ran this relay race that spread across Washington and Idaho, 189 miles in all. The race was broken into chunks and each member of my 12 person team ran 3 times throughout the 24 hours we ran. The finish line of each of my handoffs was nothing more than 4 cones set up in a square where the person to whom I was handing off would stand so we could have a proper exchange.

The Pikes Peak Ascent ended in blurred vision and victorious conquering, because the only thing more satisfying than running up a mountain is getting to the top. It is a big yellow banner they use for the finish line--pretty epic, in and of itself except they make you walk 20 extra inclined yards to the very top of the mountain becuase they couldn't put the banner up there.

The finish line of my senior year state cross country meet was at the end of a long stretch of freshly mowed and matted down stretch of grass. There were vertical banners running alongside the finishing stretch, and I remember thinking my legs had never felt like such limp pieces of flesh just dangling off my pelvis. That was a victorious finish becuase it was the last time I had to prove myself officially in the 5k and I did it faster than I ever had up to that point.

Some finish lines I've crossed aren't actually even finish lines. They are just my apartment door or my home's front porch, or the foyer at Doherty High School where our cross country team met or the lawn in front of my apartment complex. Just finishes really--to very hard, character-building runs which shaped my ability to push myself to every official finish line thereafter.

And then Boston, of course. The epitome of epic. Not only does it come at the end of a street crowded with hundreds of spectators, the blue banner of the finish nestled at the bottom of a stretch of the most pure blue sky, contained on one side by the John Hancock tower and on the other with a some famous skyscraping structure, but it comes at the end of the world's most famous 26.2 miles. I crossed the large, electronically stimulated finish line with thousands of the world's best runners, coming across, sacrificing strength I didn't have to hoist my arms triumphantaly in the air for the hundreds of news cameras and their viewers beyond to see.

One time I worked for hours with a group of three other girls on a final project that constituted half of our grade. It was the largest assignment I would ever turn in, 32 pages in all, and I even dreamt of stapling it with the huge stapler reserved for assignments of 25 pages or more. Passing it down the row to the hands of my professor was one of the most satisfying feelings in the world.

And now, I believe, I am reaching a finish here. A whole semester of sifting through my mind for my fondest memories, some of them with real finish lines, some of them races still being run. I don't know if you read all of these entries, but I did, and in fact, I wrote them. So I have thought of them fondly, and I think I will forever.

Thanks, Carol. This is a good finish.

Sometimes you don't have time

http://sloanshowcase.byu.edu/?x=2011winterjones&s=kristajroy

I hope this isn't cheating, Carol. But this link will lead you to more than 250 of my own words and hopefully some solid entertainment.

Thanks for understanding.

Anything I Want Carol to Know: Part II

My right pinkie toe can bend in a 90 degree angle becuase I have broken it so many times. I love Milkways and Three Musketeers. My favorite color is sunshine becuase if you can't choose between orange and yellow, you just combine them. I much prefer the view of city lights from a high place than stars, though I think both are lovely. I don't watch TV. My first crush was Jeffery O'Dale in kindergarten becuase he could hold the flag so straight when we said the pledge. My first friend was in the same class and her name was Monique. I don't really like olives unless they are just popped in my mouth or cooked on pizza. But definitely not on Subway sandwhiches. I consider my friends in a sort of solar system hiearchy, for there are some that are so close to my soul and others that I think are lovely but might be declared not planets at any day. I don't like talking about death or kissing. I wear K. Bell socks from Costco. I made a dress out of airplane blankets. My favorite book in the Book of Mormon is Mosiah. I hated the 3200 so much in high school track, but my mom would write stories for me on a big white board each time I passed the start line. The last time I cried was Saturday night. The last time I sobbed was November 11th, 2011. I don't anticipate crying again for quite some time. Becuase I don't usually cry. I have never gotten a C. Ok, so maybe I got one in my 6th grade Algebra class, but I am choosing to grace over that becuase I do not know how it happened. I consider one of my greatest strengths my ability to instantly connect with people and help them feel confident about themselves. I must say, I have not really demonstrated that skill in this class. Thanks for letting me talk about myself this whole time.

One time I went to Japan for a day by myself.

The scene is Narita, Japan. The characters are me and my bad self, traveling the world by accident. The time is unknown becuase that is what happens to you when you hop from time zone to time zone in a matter of days that don't actually exist, haven't happened, already happened, and are yet to happen tomorrow but were already yesterday. But it was dark outside when I landed. The thoughts are, "OH MY GOSH I'M IN JAPAN!"

Because I was. You know.

By the time I had driven from the airport to my hotel in the provided service shuttle, all I knew of Japan was sideways stop lights, crazy traffic, and other wide-eyed tourists. When I stepped into the front plaza of my hotel, I was in awe of the moist air and elaborate gold door linings at the entrance of the Narita Port Hotel, my home for the next twenty-four hours.

I paid in yen. Probably, I don't actually know becuase my mom made all the arrangements for me when she discovered I would have to fly to Japan in order to make it to Guam from Fiji where I had just landed after two weeks in Tonga so that eventaully I could get to San Fransisco to make it home to Colorado Springs. The point is, yen! I was in Japan, using a currency I had only laughed about in elementary school when I saw the square hole in the middle of a round coin.

The desk attendant spoke English. Thank goodness. She gave me a room key to a room on the third floor, one I found absolutely quaint and Japanese in every way. I walked in to find a small bathroom equipped with a toilet shrouded with a high-tech panel of buttons to operate the bidet. Of course, there was a bidet. I had seen more bidets than actual Asians since I landed in the Orient. Those people like their bidets.

A small bed with no frame and just sitting on the floor was nestled in the corner, complete with a pure white, down comforter. Folded neatly in the center of it was a black and white kimono. You better believe I put that guy on right when I figured out what it was. A bun coiled right on top of my head followed shortly thereafter.

I stayed up late (or maybe not? I literally have no idea what time it actually was) and planned the next day, since I would have until 5 that afternoon to gallivant around Japan by myself until I needed to get back to the airport and onto Guam. I found a shuttle schedule on top of a pile of fliers on a desk in the corner. Luckily, numbers remain consistent from culture to culture or else I would have been stuck. There is not even a hope of guessing translation from latin roots when everything is written in characters.

When I knelt to pray that night, I almost felt like I should place my palms together in front of my face in a reverent Japanese gesture instead of folding my arms.

And then I went to bed. In a Japanese kimono on a Japanese bed in a Japanese hotel with the Japanese world just waiting for me to enter it the next morning. And I slept a Japanese sleep, dreaming of bamboo poles and squinty eyes.

Qualified

You know how far 26 miles is? It's like running up and down my street at home 26 times. 26 times!! I can remember when I used to think just running up that street was bad, but 26 times!? Yikes. It's also twice as far as a half marathon, a distance which causes most normal, capable runners to buckle with fatigue upon finishing. It's so far that if you ran say, a mile, every year of your life, you could go through all of your schooling, k-12, four years of college, 2 years of graduate school, met someone, fallen in love, gotten married and had 2 kids before you even finished running 26 miles altogether. That is a lot of miles.

You know what else? After you run about 24 of those 26, you are tired. And when I say that, I mean, when I had run about 24 of those 26, I was exhausted.

My legs felt about as solid as a stick of string cheese on the sidewalk in Dallas.

My mouth was full of six cottonballs. Oh wait. Not really. It just felt that way.

My arms could lift a paper clip, maybe, if by some miracle I could get my fingers to close around it.

The sweat overflowing around my hairline, down my back, under my arms, between my legs, in my shoes, and from my tear ducts could have a filled a swimming pool. And i'm not talking about the kiddy inflatable kind in your front yard.

And that was with two miles left.

With one more to go, I called upon every fiber of mental strength still responsive and effective in my little crazy running mind and chanted the line my father taught me, "Anyone can run a mile. Come on, Kris. Anyone can run a mile. Anyone can run a mile."

People don't stop so close to the finish line of a marathon even though every logical and anatomical reasoning points to that end. Legs tired? Give them a rest. Eyes blurred? Let them close. Mind swimming? Pull it to shore. But people don't. I don't. Ever. Especially not when I have such a strong mental capacity to direct my energy--even when it doesn't exist anymore--towards a greater goal.

And so I kept running. Struggling, more like, but movement nonetheless, until I passed the sign with a huge 26 blaring in red letters. .2 to go. There were people, I'm sure, and they had to have faces, I guess, but I registered none of it. I turned a corner on a narrow street and heard a band somewhere close by playing "Build Me Up, Buttercup." Fitting.

There was a fountain. Kids were playing in it. I wanted to be them.

Last curve. I came to the straightaway of the St. George Marathon finish and thought there had never been an arch of balloons that seemed to be so far in another universe than the red and white ones far off in the distance. A greater momentum pushed me forward, that sense of a finish. A strong end to something far greater than just the 26 miles behind me. Me crossing that line would be a triumph of countless Saturday mornings on the trail and hurried speed workouts around the Provo High track.

My legs surged forward as I pushed myself to lengthen my stride with muscles that weren't working anymore. I heard Jamie's voice calling my name and the deep rumble of LaDon's baritone cheer beside hers, but I could not even turn my head to acknowledge them. My blurred eyesight glazed over them from my peripheral then back to the balloons, bobbing in the distance.

I could see the clock. Even with the margin of difference from the time the clock stared when the gun went off and when I actually got to cross the start line earlier that morning, the neon green numbers shouted a joyous refrain to my hazy eyes. The numbers there were less than the 3:40 I needed to qualify. 3:39. Three hours and thirty-nine minutes. I was going to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

With a final spurt, I let my foot land on the blue felt finish line, and the next step past it was into the arms of a man dressed in army camo. I crumbled into his arms, relieving all the muscles in my body from the strain and endurance they had just experienced over the past 4 hours. It was so hot. A boy shoved a finisher's medal around my neck and Camo Prince Charming shuffled my silly putty body over to a cage of PVC pipes shooting mist over a horde of limp bodies like mine, clinging to the pipe to stay up.

It was so hot.

The mist got me so wet. I leaned my forehead against the white surface and looked down at the watch, the real time. 3:34.

I was going to Boston.